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Lance

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Everything posted by Lance

  1. Newegg still has new LGA 775 motherboards available... but regardless it's a waste of money to start replacing parts on computers that old anyway.
  2. I never claimed It was a mass murder. I claimed it was a mass shooting. They share the same threshold, yes, but differ in the definition of murder and shooting. You're correct in that the event wouldn't be classified as a mass murder, but it would classify as a mass shooting. In all fairness I dislike the comparison as well, but ignoring it didn't seem like the best way to handle the wall of text that she posted.
  3. So you're saying you can shoot as many people as you want, but as long as no more than 4 people die it's not a mass shooting? Also, I'd like a source for your FBI definition. Regardless, you're just arguing semantics now which isn't really strengthening your argument.
  4. I never claimed that is was a massacre. I claimed there were 7 casualties, which is accurate. I generally avoid emotionally manipulative words like "massacre".
  5. You have an awfully eclectic debate style. Yes, I'm sure they exist. I doubt that a significant sized population does though. There are always outliers. I imagine I could find a guy known for making purses out of human skin. That doesn't justify demonizing an entire population of purse makers though. Feel free to ponder the ethics of polar bear hunting by yourself. I don't feel strongly either way. Honestly, I don't really have any idea what they do up there. They send us oil, they do their own thing... I don't have any problem with people killing themselves. It's tragic, yes, but I feel it's well within their right. You can't possibly claim that the weapon was somehow speaking to the victim forcing them to do it. I imagine most firearms accidents are also self inflicted, which I also don't have much of a problem with, assuming they're adults. How do any of your statistics support your claim that me owning a firearms infringes on your personal liberty? If your gun control method consists of an information campaign I'm fine with that. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with paying for that though. I would also support further legislation to prosecute gun owners for the injury or death of a minor. I would probably also be willing to support legislation to prosecute gun owners for injury caused by a stolen weapon, assuming the weapon was completely unsecured, and the prosecution can prove that the crime wouldn't have been possible without access to the stolen weapon. In the US legislation already exists for both of these scenarios. What else do you want?
  6. Uh...what? Let me attempt a translation and you tell me how close I get.
  7. Lance

    Yay, GUNS!

    How very libertarian of you
  8. I once had a pair of socks that had silver wire weaved into it. My feet weren't any less smelly after extended wear. The overclocking community also uses silver coils in water cooling systems because they believe it stops the growth of algae. They call it a "kill coil". I guess when you come up with a name that cool you don't really need any scientific evidence.
  9. Incorrect There's been at least one, the Monash University shooting, with 7 casualties. Also interesting to note a murder/arson that resulted in 15 deaths, Childers Palace Backpackers Hostel fire. Mass shootings are statistically irrelevant however. They are a very small proportion of violent crime. Yes, yes, socially Australians are so much better off socially than us Americans. Irrelevant. To be honest I've never really considered this. Gun ownership is cultural in the US. Our revolution wouldn't have been possible without a very high rate of personal firearm ownership and I suppose that idea has been ingrained in our culture ever since. Not to mention I started my career in military law enforcement where 99% of the people I encountered and apprehended were armed. It's never been much of an issue, it just requires different training. My 3 year old daughter has been injured by dogs twice, neither of which I owned. She's never even been in the proximity of a negligent discharge. In the US 4,500,000 people per year are bitten by dogs. You're not going to convince me a pack of angry dogs are safer than a secured firearm. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18836045 You have it backwards. I support my fellow citizens gun rights specifically because I trust them and feel that they deserve to live peaceful kindly lives without intervention. Also, that's needlessly insulting. That's exactly why I made this personal. All you see in the media are crazies. Your only source of data is propaganda. You're completely unaware of what the actual population looks like. The person you're describing doesn't exist.
  10. Well no, now that I think about it. The media as well as the President are demanding that something be done, but nothing has actually been done. I would absolutely advocate simple actions to limit possible damage. There's no 1-10 value for firepower. It's far, far more complicated than that. A pistol caliber with less “firepower” is more effective at close range. Pistol calibers with less kinetic energy tend to deliver more energy into their targets because the rifle caliber punches through the target without delivering all of it's energy. Pistol calibers are also larger so they have a higher change of hitting a vital artery. I would actually be more comfortable with a 9mm pistol than a 5.56mm AR at conversational distance. The shooters you hear about in the media didn't choose their weapons because of effectiveness, they chose them because they are weapons that are glorified by the media. An AR just looks so much more cool and scary, yet most hunters would call you unethical if you tried shooting even a small deer with it, because it apparently lacks firepower. A .30-06 hunting rifle, which nobody has any interest in banning because they don't look scary, has 3 times the kinetic energy. Reloading IS relevant when facing another shooter. It is NOT relevant when facing unarmed civilians. Unarmed civilians don't have time to escape in the 1 second it takes to reload. Another shooter can take advantage of that one second however. Yes, you could argue limiting capacity allows police a better chance to stop the shooter. But let's be honest here, police don't actually stop anything. They arrive after the shooter commits suicide or runs away so they can write a report.
  11. If I had some my walls would be covered in circuits. I would never get my security deposit back.
  12. You could try mining bitcoins with them. The more efficient systems use gpus to do the mining so I don't know how much money you could actually make with systems that old. You could try it for a day and see if you make back the energy cost.
  13. Yep, I'm done. You seem to be getting emotional about the issue which doesn't really interest me. Thanks for the discussion though.
  14. Because it's impractical to ban everything that scares you. Especially when banning said things won't actually have much of an affect on your probability of injury. You already claimed that criminals mostly only kill themselves. So it's unlikely that you'll be shot that way. People's neighbors rarely get shot from negligent discharges so it's unlikely you'll be injured that way. How Exactly does me owning a gun represent a threat to you personally? In the last year I've shot hundreds of rounds for qualifications, hundreds in competitions, and thousands in practice. More likely to kill a family member? If that was true I would have thousands of dead family members. I'm ignoring it because it's blatantly wrong. My competition pistol has been used hundreds of times for it's intended purpose, sport shooting, but never hurt a single person. My duty pistol is used 5 days a week for it's intended purpose, deterrence, but never hurt a single person. Although I don't hunt, plenty of hunters have gone a lifetime of hunting, intended purpose, and never hurt anybody. Where are you getting this nonsense that they are more likely to kill a family member than “good things”? You can't create an A:B ratio then completely ignore that A even exists. You're ignoring that guns can and are used for things other than negligence and murder. I am absolutely not downplaying the risk to gun ownership. I would never even consider training somebody on their use without a substantial amount of safety training before we come anywhere near live ammo. Nearly every block of instruction I've ever received has included multiple videos of people shooting themselves. Stop insinuating that I've somehow deluded myself to believe that guns are 100% safe. But if we banned everything that could result in accidental or intentional death where would we be? No, I can't. Conveniently, neither can you. Because it's speculation. We know that people kill people. People have always killed people. No amount of legislation is going to prevent people from killing people. I did answer it. I don't use fists because I would go to jail. Fists cause maiming and death.
  15. It's not that I was hoping you wouldn't notice, it's that I feel it doesn't make much of a difference to your overall argument. What's your point? That not all cleaning products are dangerous but all guns are? Sure I'll give you that one. Still doesn't change the fact that the average home contains items that can be just as dangerous to children. (cleaning products, knives, mains electricity, ect) You claim that guns don't have a legitimate use other than killing innocent people and cleaning products do, but that's incorrect. I'll accept that. As long as you use education rather than forcefully taking somebody's liberty. But claiming that people only buy guns for self defense suggests that you don't fully understand the situation. The flaw in your speculation is that people get into fist fights and gun fights for different reason. There is absolutely an overlap but just because somebody got into a first fight and lived doesn't mean that if they had been armed it would have turned into a gun fight and people would be dead. I also feel like an armed population is less likely to get into fights at all. It's pretty dumb to go about punching people when they could be armed. Deterrence. Ironically I would never use fists for anything because the public sees it as excessive use of force. It seems like what this argument really comes down to is a difference in opinion on what an acceptable risk is. I'm willing to accept the risks that come with gun ownership, and you're not. So don't buy a gun.
  16. I'm really not saying your argument is entirely without merit. It always comes back to misinformation. If we are going to start banning guns which destroy my competitive shooting hobby I'd like it to be based on logic, and not a knee jerk reaction to a few crazies with scary looking weapons. No I didn't! You were talking about guns making my home more dangerous. I was simply pointing out that there are plenty of other objects in my home that make it more dangerous. Most drain cleaners are concentrated sodium hydroxide or other extremely caustic solutions. So are oven cleaners. To an extent, you're correct. But I think you're downplaying the number of US homes with guns in them. Most statistics I'm seeing are around 45%. But not all homes keep dangerous cleaning products either. I don't keep them in the house. If I need drain cleaner I use it then dispose of it immediately after. I wouldn't even know where to begin on finding a statistic for that for comparison though. Yes you're right. The gun rights argument isn't perfect, neither is the gun control argument. I'm not going to sit here and say there's no rational reason to restrict gun ownership. But your argument is mostly speculation. People still kill each other with fists in the heat of the moment. Yes, guns make it easier. You also said yourself that criminals mostly kill each other so there's no need for one for self defense. Which is it? Either only criminals kill each other and they aren't useful for self defense, or the world really is a dangerous place and they are useful.
  17. The average scary looking "assault weapon" is far less powerful than hunting rifles. Hunting rifles are designed to immediately kill their target. Otherwise people whine about unethical hunting. Military weapons are designed to injure rather than kill because it takes more people out of the fight. Sure you could argue magazine capacity, but when you can reload in a fraction of a second that also becomes pretty irrelevant. The carbine used in the Columbine shooting only used 10 round magazines available. Nobody in the US is carrying around squad automatic weapons. That's the media being dramatic. I won't be the one to call you heartless. The statistics were actually my entire point. I was looking for somebody to explain why they felt the shooting was statistically relevant.
  18. Right because that's why we are so effective in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our high tech military tore through them since they only had small arms and improvised weapons. Oh wait... we didn't. High tech weapons don't offer any guarantees in unconventional warfare. I'm not sure why you list prison system as an advantage. I'ts actually a disadvantage It raises moral for the insurgents and lowers moral for the Military. Insurgents know that if they're captured they go to prison. Soldiers know that if their captured they're tortured and executed. Formidable surveillance is useless when the insurgents look like the rest of the population. Also watch what happens to military support when the American government tries bombing American Citizens. You just lost the war. Warfare isn't as black and white as you see it.
  19. 1. Never having to use your gun to defend yourself is far better than having to defend yourself without one. 2. Huh? Knock you out? Do you know how hard it is to actually knock somebody out? It's not like the movies. All of the practical ways to knock somebody out also have an unfortunate side affect called death. OC and tazers have a 0% chance to knock somebody out. I'm not even allowed to hit somebody in the head with an asp unless I'm justified in using deadly force. Because it's just as likely to kill you as it is to "knock you out". 3.Thank you for that. I was worried I would have to present far more evidence before you admitted I'm god's gift to responsibility. de·ter·rent Noun A thing that discourages or is intended to discourage someone from some act. Surely it's not necessary for me to explain this further? But making this personal is mostly irrelevant. I carry a duty weapon. No amount of legislation will have any affect on it. That's entirely unfair. You're comparing apples and oranges. Your first claim was that a weapon just being in the home makes it more dangerous. Which seemed to imply you were talking about deaths from negligent discharges. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/deaths_2010_release.pdf Note that this includes all ages: Accidental deaths from Firearms in 2010: 606 Accidental poisoning: 33,041 Falls: 26,009 Motor vehicle accidents: 35,332 Accidental drowning: 3,782 Accidental exposure to smoke or fire: 2,782 My point stands.
  20. The issue is that when you come up with half-ass gun control schemes things don't get less dangerous. You're taking guns away from the people that aren't crazy. And most people aren't going to sell their AR-15 worth $2000 for $100 at a gun buyback. Also, who's paying for this anyway? I've personally never had to do that. But I carry a weapon professionally which acts as a deterrent. Are you asking about me personally? My guns are are more likley to acheive that goal. By definition a quarrel that results in the use of deadly force isn't petty... Yes, yes, guns in the house make kids less safe. So do cleaning products, which are statistically probably more dangerous.
  21. But... not giving people guns isn't an option. There's no way to go back in time and stop the invention of any or all weapons. The fact is that they exist, and people own them. I understand your logic, and it appears valid, but it's not actually offering a solution to any problem. It's entirely philosophical. You can ban guns, search every house and attempt confiscation, but guns will still exist. Not to mention that confiscation in the US will probably result in enough deaths to fulfill our mass shooting quota for the next century. I'm not going to attempt to argue that a knife is as dangerous as a gun. That's obviously dumb. Guns are necessary to assist us in killing people.
  22. I guess that sums up my problem with the situation. Why advocate legislation based entirely on an emotional reaction to the media?
  23. The jawbone story isn't being spoon fed to the American population. So, no I have no real problem with the jawbone story.
  24. I'm not trying to be insensitive. I had a knee jerk reaction just like everybody else. But when you really sit down and think about the situation, why do we care so much? It can't be because of the age of the victims. Many, many times that number die in other preventable ways. The number of children that die in mass shootings is minuscule in comparison. So why spend money on preventing such a small proportion of preventable deaths?
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